Medical devices are frequently used to treat the anatomy of patients. Such devices can be permanently or semi-permanently implanted in the anatomy to provide treatment to the patient. Frequently, these devices, including stents, grafts, stent-grafts, filters, valves, occluders, markers, mapping devices, therapeutic agent delivery devices, prostheses, pumps, bandages, and other endoluminal and implantable devices, are inserted into the body at an insertion point and delivered to a treatment site using a catheter. Common types of expandable devices include stents and stent-grafts.
Expandable devices such as stents or stent-grafts are used in a variety of places in the human body to repair aneurysms and to support various anatomical lumens, such as blood vessels, respiratory ducts, gastrointestinal ducts, and the like. Expandable devices may have a reduced diameter when in a collapsed configuration, and they may be expanded once located at the treatment site in the patient. Expandable devices can be constrained in the collapsed configuration with a releasable sleeve to facilitate transport to the treatment site.
Although delivery of an expandable device to a treatment site in a patient may be relatively straightforward, angular radial orientation of the device during deployment may be more problematic. For example, with conventional catheter delivery systems, an expandable device is rotated within the body lumen by applying torque at the proximal end of the catheter outside the patient. However, rotation of the catheter may not result in the desired rotational positioning of the medical device, because the torque applied to the catheter may not fully transfer to a rotation of the device.
As such, there is a need for medical device delivery systems, assemblies and methods that facilitate the angular radial orientation of medical devices during deployment at a treatment site.